Past's Future
by S.K. Jameson
Summary: When Elizabeth and McKay find the original time machine...
1. Chapter 1

So this is my first Stargate:Atlantis fic... I decided that it would be a good idea to buy both seasons 1 and 2 and watch them in 2 days...so that's where this came from...Please be kind...

Oh, and I don't own anything... blah blah blah... you know the drill...

**Past's Future**

"Rodney!"

"Listen, the more you bug me, the less I'll get done, and the less I get done, the less chance this has to work. And if it doesn't work--"

"Rodney, I get it, you don't have to keep reminding me."

"Obviously, I do, otherwise you wouldn't keep bugging me--"

" I simply asked a question." Elizabeth took a deep breath, sometimes dealing with the cocky, self-centered scientist proved to be completely unrelentless. "Could you please remember for one second that I'm not able to read your _genious_ mind, and take two seconds to explain how this is going to work to me?"

As she suspected the off-colored compliment caught his attention, long enough for him to realize that before she'd definately give him a go on this, she'd need to at least understand the basic idea of what he was trying to accomplish. Rather, she just needed to assess if there were going to be any dangers to her city.

"I'm sorry, " He cocked a half turned smile. "I forget you can't always see the big picture, and--"

"Rodney!" She rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Just get to the point, _please_."

He took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts, "Has anyone ever told you that sometimes you can be so _impatient_?"

"The more time you take to explain this, the longer it takes for me to give it the okay. I just can't understand why you seem so interested in putting that off."

"Because I know how quickly I can explain the situation."

As if on an unsaid que, John Sheppard entered the room, his eyes lit up with wonder at the contraption laid out in the middle of the room.

"What'd I miss?" He walked around the device, chosing to stand next to Dr. Weir. She looked at him, then to McKay.

"Rodney was just about to explain how this device works, and exactly what he was going to do to try and see if it's even operational." She gestured at the scientist, then crossed her arms over her chest, the look on her face telling him to hurry up and get what he needed to explain said.

"What is this?" John couldn't resist the urge to say it. He knew deep down Elizabeth had probably pushed all of Rodney's easily accessible buttons, but what could one more hurt. The scientist had such a short fuse that at times it was almost comical how quickly he could be pushed to almost insanity.

"I was just about to _explain _to Dr. Weir," He connected his ancient computer cord between his laptop and the device, picking up the notebook after he did so. "It's a time travel device. Much like the one that her other self apparently traveled back into time with."

John turned to Elizabeth, "I thought you said that --? "

"Janis"

"Janis," John looked from Rodney to Elizabeth. "I thought the other you said that it was destroyed when it crashed thousands of years ago."

"Well, it was." She stopped, remembering the story the alternate aged version of her told about how the first trip to Atlantis played out. She was about to continue, but Rodney beat her to her next words.

"This appears to be some sort of prototype."

"The one Janis must have built before the one he put in the puddlejumper." John could see Weir's eyes light up as she said the words.

"That's exactly what I just said." McKay scoffed. "Glad to see we're all on the same page now. Can I continue?"

"Please do, " John exchanged smiles with Elizabeth. They both knew at that point that they had both gotten a hand in pushing Rodney right to the end of his rope.

"Alright, since we- and by we I mean Elizabeth and I- have uncovered this device, we've discovered just exactly what we've said, that it's a time-travel device. That being the same sort of device that the alter-Elizabeth discovered in her _alternate _reality apparently the _first_ time that we came through the gate. Now, I'm pretty sure that the power source is here and if I--"

"You're _pretty_ sure?" Elizabeth looked at John when the interjection came out of his mouth. She was used to the back and forth between Rodney and John, but today, so far, it seemed at almost an all time high. But as she always had come to expect from McKay, this was no setback.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure." As she looked from one scientist to her military leader, McKay's words didn't falter.

"Rodney, I need you to be absolutely sure."

"I am absolutely sure. When are you two going to trust me?"

"You did blow up two-thirds of a solar system." Sheppard's words cut through him like a knife.

"I've already appologized for that, besides, I find it easier to be right than get yelled at again by Dr. Weir." He waited just a moment before continuing. "Now, if we're ready to test the power?"

But before he could even finish the lights on the console teemed to life, and he was left trying to hide his suprise, just as the other two in the room were left doing the same.

"McKay?"

"Rodney?"

Weir and Sheppard's words came out at the same time as they looked at Rodney, hoping by some strange chance that he had anything to do with the power up. Instead the three looked at each other with inquiring looks as McKay shook his head telling them in disbelief that he had nothing to do with it.

"It wasn't me." The device had simply come to life.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry it took me so long to update this, after rewatching a few of the SG episodes, I came to be my own voice of reason, but then I realized that this is just a story, and it being just that, I'd let it play out with a bit of fun. So to anyone who is reading this, a huge thank you goes to you. :)

As always, I'm just borrowing the characters, kinda like taking books out of the library. Oh, and sorry this chapter is a bit slow, I promise the next one will be a lot more fun! Enjoy :)

Chapter 2 : Weighing the Options

So many times had the senior staff members of Atlantis found themselves sitting face to face around the horseshoe shaped table in the conference room. Today being no exception, it had been two hours since Elizabeth had dragged both Rodney and John out of the room that held the new technology they'd found, sealing the door behind them. She even took the precaution of posting two guards, just so that no one got any ideas of trying to use the machine before they figured out exactly what course of action to take.

"Look I'm just saying that I think we need to access this further." Weir folded her hands in front of her, and let her elbows slide a bit on the table. "So let's lay it out one more time."

"We've already been through this how many times," Rodney scoffed as he leaned back in his chair. "How many more times can we go over the same thing, I mean I understand that you like to be cautious, but this is just ridiculous ."

"The last time you rushed into something--"

"Yes I know, two-thirds of a solar system." Rodney shifted once again defending himself to Weir. "In my defense, not that I should have to have one, but that was some time ago now, and if you've noticed, all the things that I've done since then have really been beneficial...not to mention the fact that _whenever_ something goes wrong, you all look to me to fix it. I mean I'm all for my expertice, but I'm beginning to lose track of how many times I've--"

"Oh, come on, just admit it," John let a half-cocked smile appear on his face. "You let your ego get the best of you."

"Can we focus here, please?" Weir always let McKay go on a bit with his tangent, just enough so that he'd talk rapidly and then get to the point sooner. It was a tactic she had learned early on, and she used it quite frequently. "Look, I've been thinking about this, and I don't exactly know that we should go playing with a time travel device. The last time that one was used, look at how much the future, _our _future for that matter was altered. We don't know what consequences we could be having on ourselves, or the lives of others."

"Just a thought, but couldn't we go back and do something good, say make sure that we never wake up the Wraith?" It was John's turn to shift in his chair as he glanced from Weir to McKay. He suddenly noticed that they were missing Teyla and Ronan, only to remember that they were scheduled to return from the mainland today.

"No." Elizabeth looked at him firmly, leaning back in her chair as she looked at both men, making sure they understood her. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. If we go back and change that, we never know what the consequences might be, for all we know we could make it a lot worse."

"First off, we don't even know one hundred percent that this device could send us forward or back into time, and second, it may not operate the same as the other one did. Heck, it might not even work the way that we are thinking at all. Without further analysis we can only conclude that this may be a prototype for the other one, we have to remember that it couldn't be a later 'model' because they banned him--"

"Janis." Weir corrected to pay respect to the man who had saved them thousands of years before they had traveled to Atlantis the second time.

"_Whatever_, the point is that he couldn't have built this after the other one, so we don't really know exactly how this one works." Rodney finished.

Sheppard watched Weir leaned forward in her chair once more, her face telling him that she was trying to find the best course of action for any possible experiments or tests that they may be able to run to learn more.

She took a deep breath, then "What are our options for running tests?"

"Well, you'd have to remove the guards in the room, and let me near the device for one."

"That was sort of a given, Rodney," Sheppard was getting a bit restless, he had to admit that this new find was a big one, and he was a bit anxious to go see what it could do, as he imagined McKay was as well. Hell even Elizabeth had to be a little anxious to test it out.

"I don't want the chance that we could lose anyone while running tests. We can't forget that the other Weir said that it was as if the other John just thought about being somewhere else and then they were just transported. " Weir once again was the voice of reason.

"Well this one has to interface directly with the mind as well, only it appears that the user has to be in close proximity to the device--"

"Why do you think that?" John leaned forward.

"Because, just as I was looking for the on switch, I was thinking about how to turn it on, and oh, surprise, the device just turned on." Sheppard narrowed his eyes at McKay's condescending words. "Look, I still say that they only way to learn more about this device is to be around it. Otherwise we may as just quarantine the room and never let anyone near it again. Which would be stupid because think of all of the positive things that we could learn from the device."

Elizabeth took one more deep breath, letting her eyes shift from one man to the other, her mind clearly weighing out the options, pros and cons of experimentation, "Alright. I'll give you the go to run some more tests. But be careful."

Before the words were out of her mouth both men were on their feet, like two little kids told that they could go outside for recess.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" John said as they both briskly walked towards the transporter.

"Of course I do, don't I always?"


End file.
